Competition for places has been vital to improving form

His development of Barkley, Galloway, Stones Funes Mori etc is fantastic to watch. Long may it continue...

My feeling was that next year was the year to see what we really have as a team with so much youth in it. Roberto seems to think they can get it done this season. Fine by me.

Now, if Ross will just eliminate carrying the ball straight into 2-3 defenders . . . . . . .

Back 7 are set in stone (Baines will take over from Galloway) and Rom has no competition up top (but is still scoring). Jags is out for a while but I cannot imagine him not walking straight back into the side, especially given he’s the skipper.

Also love the way Europe is again the reason we had a shit season last year, even though the worst period coincided with when we didn’t have any Europa League games...

We’re playing decent stuff at the moment but again, one game at a time...

Does that mean our form has improved?

Read: "We are playing well."

I think if you had asked any Evertonian how we would cope without Baines and Jagielka many, me amongst them would have feared the worst. But his purchases of Galloway and in particular Funes Mori has been very impressive.

I also agree with RM that the hardest task will be to keep hold of some of our key players come the summer. Should we not get Champions League football, can he persuade Lukaku and Stones and maybe Barkley to remain with us?

I would gladly have had RM leave after last season, as we had definitely gone backwards. But maybe he has listened to the fans' dissatisfaction at the very slow build-up play. Although I still think much more work is needed on our tempo in matches, as we quite often slip back into the slow build up routine.

All for nought if he sticks with players when their form drops, so that will be interesting to see.

This was not going to be a straight-forward journey and there should have been more patience shown. Hard when you’re forking out a small fortune to watch dross but Martinez had to look beyond the immediate. Not everyone saw that, some still don’t.

Listening to the fans' dissatisfaction? I don’t think so.

We have despatched a couple of dreadful sides, which was nice, but let’s not get carried away. We have a trip to Bournemouth to navigate, and although on paper, they are in the same bracket as our last two opponents, I think that they will be more of a test, and they have been a bit unlucky so far. Hopefully these big wins will have the team buzzing with confidence and we will go down there and collect the three points.

In December, we have Palace and Leicester visiting us, which will give us an idea of how good we are. In January we will play Spurs, Man City and Chelsea. These are the games that will determine whether we are Europa League contenders or mid-table also-rans.

We have a great young squad, rejecting bids for our main assets and that is still not enough for some of ours so if this is not making you happy right now then I wouldn’t know what can be.

We don’t have an Arab/Russian so accept the good times while they last. And I have to say you moaning boys really piss me off... try living through the bad patches of the '70s & '80s like many of us have.

Quote:

"Everton were really good against Villa last weekend and it is interesting to see how their team has developed since the start of the season, with Arouna Kone and Gerard Deulofeu coming into the starting line-up.

"Bournemouth really should have got three points against Swansea last time out - to be 2-0 up against a team that is not playing well, and surrendering the lead, is just not good enough.

"This is a gut feeling more than anything else, but I am going to go for a Bournemouth win.

"It is certainly not based on their previous form, because they have only won one of their last 10 league games, but they are still creating chances and scoring goals and I think they will get the win they have been waiting for on Saturday.

"Lawro's prediction: 2-1"

I’m expecting a tough game against them on Saturday but hopefully the lads will keep up the good form and get the points.

For me, that’s exactly the approach he should be taking barring someone suffering an obvious and continuous dip in form.

Despite the manager himself highlighting competition for places as "the only reason we’ve been so good in our recent performances", I would suggest a more significant factor is the fact he’s actually been fielding a more settled side for a change, instead of constantly chopping and changing for the sake of it or to placate players who haven’t had as much time on the pitch as they themselves would like recently.

I don’t believe for one minute that Deulofeu’s recent shit-hot streak, for example, is due to Lennon breathing down his neck (okay, breathing slightly above his arse crack) thereby causing him to up his game, rather than it is down to him being given a decent run of games to find form and forge an understanding with those around him.

Same with Kone. I don’t think it’s the spectre of Steven Naismith that is spurring him on to finally show the sort of form that convinced Martinez to bring him with him from Wigan. It’s far more likely that, for the first time since he signed, he’s gotten enough game time to regain confidence in both his body and ability and to gel with Lukaku in particular.

Good win for us will neither get us any recognition or shut the biased media off. But they can't stop us enjoying our football.

We don’t need an Arab or a Russian, the TV money is closing the gap all over the Premier League. It is probably why things are closer this season; lots of clubs have more money to spend, and perhaps we are seeing a change.
My main point was we will see in due course just how good we are, or just how average we are.

But if you have to look past the last three games to judge us then you might as well go back to the start of the season. So far we have done alright despite significant injuries and a tough sequence of fixtures, we seem to have settled our young players into decent form. Rom has shown his goalscoring ability, we’ve found goals from the supporting acts, and the bench looks stronger than in the past. And we’re still in the League Cup. And we’ve played some great football at times.

With players returning from injury, young players with improvement in them, and a kind run of fixtures it’s hard not to feel a bit optimistic isn’t it?

Week in, week out, his predictions for us and the RS are subjective and reflect wishful thinking on his part, rather than any real attempt at analysing current form of either us and the RS, or the respective opponents for that week.

His predictions are based on the form of the two sides 40 years ago rather than 40 hours ago.

It really is time he was put out to grass.

Tomorrow we should win but how many times when we start a roll do we end up blowing it? A continuation of the form from our last 3 games and I would fully expect a win.

That's not to say there aren’t people in the squad who could do their jobs... it's just the boss will always pick his favourites

3-1 Everton.

Subjective bollocks.

We need to beating these teams if we have any hope of getting back to Europe.